Growing up: I grew up in a Christian home, where my parents went to a Methodist church, my Dad a very strong Christian. I went to a Baptist summer camp every year for many years until my high school years. I thought of myself as a Christian from attending church and MYF every Sunday.
I began dating someone after graduation and saw he had a temper, but did not really think much about it. One year after dating I married him and had our first son during our first year of marriage. Six months later I experience a severe outburst of anger from my husband, not against me, but his mother, who had a terrible temper also. She was where he got his from. He had an identical twin brother who nothing like their mother, but was as kind and caring as their father was.
Two years later we had our second son and a year after that moved due his taking a job as a city policeman. A few years later, when they boys were at the age when they started back talking us, is when he temper really showed. He threatened to hit me several times, to which I told him if he did he would not live to the sun rise again. I never backed down or cowered from him, I refused to. There were several times I had to physically get in between my husband and oldest son to keep my husband from hitting him. There was constant turmoil in our home. I never knew what mood my husband would be in when he woke up or came home from work. Also during this time he called me every name in the book and then some, yes even in front of our sons and his family. I knew he was running around on me and I prayed a husband would come home and shoot him or either he would be killed in the line of duty.
We began attending a non denominational church, where we learned more about Christ than all my years in the Methodist church. Through this church we began going to Bible studies. He had everyone fooled into believing he was such a wonderful husband and father. Then one day he hit my oldest son’s back so hard you could see every single line and crease from the palm of his hand and fingers on my son’s back. If he had been home when I saw that, I would have killed him on the spot, no gun needed. That was it, I pressed charges of child abuse against him. When the counselor came to our home and made mention of child abuse, he made it clear it was not child abuse, but discipline. Of course the counselor made it very clear to him it most definitely was child abuse. I was so tired of the constant turmoil in our lives. Back then they did not have any where for women and children to go like they do now.
How it happened: Around this time (I do not remember a lot of things in the past, as on Christmas night of ’87 I had a seizure, brought on by stress, which affected the memory part of my brain. A lot of things from the boys growing up are gone. Thankfully out oldest was home on leave in the AF for Christmas) I attended a Women’s Aglow meeting where the guest speaker was a retired woman judge. She was telling about her experiences of smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union. I was on the edge of my seat. The miracles that happened to their group was so amazing. Afterwards she gave an alter call and I went forward. I was crying my eyes out and when it was my turn with her she gave me the most loving hug I’d ever had. She instructed me to raise my hands, take a very deep breath and just make a sound. When I did I have no idea what I said except the first four words were Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba and the rest was a foreign language. I did not know at the time I had been baptized by the Holy Spirit. It was such a wonderful, loving, fulfilling moment. I cried all the way, I was so elated.
After this happened things got much worse between my husband and me. The Lord knew about the storm brewing and I was now prepared for this onslaught of evil. Finally after a few years of this my husband did something that had him really worried. He was fired, again, for sexual harassment again. On his way home he stopped by our minister’s home. He ended up being there for around 3 hours, crying and telling everything to our minister. After this he was changed as different as day and night. He had become a true Christian. Six months later he died from cancer, but those six months were the best in our marriage. I was finally free from all he had put us through – emotional, mental and physical abuse. Both of our sons were grown, with the youngest still at home. After his death our minister told me he knew I had been through a lot with that man, but after his telling all he had done during our marriage, it was only by the grace of God could I have put up with him. He also told me he had no idea I was that strong of a Christian. I always wondered why God would allow me to go through such turmoil with my husband. I found out a few years later, after I remarried, with my youngest step-son.
Today: After what I had been through with my late husband, I just knew there were not any decent men left, that all were taken. Two years after my husband’s death, during my devotions one morning, I asked if there was a man out there for me, let me meet him. Two months later I met my present husband on April 1, he was divorced and had 4 children. (His youngest would eventually live with us.) He was the complete opposite of my late husband. We talked and talked the first night we met. I had never known a man who truly knew how to talk to a woman with put downs. We married and I moved from Maryland’s eastern shore to Virginia Beach, VA (he was in the Navy, stationed in Virginia Beach) to finally Kansas, which is where he is from. I had to tag along. I was never going to get married again, move again or raise kids again. I have done all of the above. My youngest step-son was ADHD & Bipolar, being very violent with his mood swings. Skipping a lot, I am now involved in a prison ministry, due to his youngest son, (he is in Virginia and others are in Montana, Idaho, Virginia & Maryland) mainly correspondence due to the distance. It is very rewarding when you are able to help an inmate finally come to know the Lord. There is not much I have not been through, but without the Lord I could not have done it. I just do not understand how some who think they know the Lord can survive without Him. They just do not know what they are missing out on.